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Friday, January 30, 2015

Nicaragua, Cool Facts #1



1. Nicaragua's name

Nicaragua got its name from a chief, whose tribe lived in the highlands. His name was Nicarao and when the Spanish conquistadors came from the Panama Isthmus to Nicaragua he was the most important indian chief in the area.



2. Federal Republic of Central America

Nicaragua was 300 years a part of the Spanish colony, after that Nicaragua joined the Federal Republic of Central America with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica. So Central America was kind of one country between the years 1823-1838 when it collapsed and all of its countries declared themselves independent.



3. Mexican empire

When the Spanish left from Central America the declared Mexican empire tried to conquer Nicaragua and the other Central American countries. For a couple of years Nicaragua was part of the Mexican empire before joining the Federal Republic of Central America.



4. Nicaragua's American president

William Walker was the president of Nicaragua 1856-1857. The liberals of Leon in Nicaragua called William who was a lawyer, doctor, mercenary and adventurer to help them against Granada's conservatives. It worked and in 1856 William declared himself as the president before a coalition of other central american countries expelled him. During his short presidency he legalized slavery again and made english the official language.



5. Nicaragua Canal 

Already in the early 1900s Nicaragua under Zelaya's regime wanted to build the Nicaragua Canal across their huge inland lake "Lake Nicaragua". They approached Japan and Germany considering about the building of the canal, USA didn't like this. After a long time of planning the constructions of building the canal began in december 2014.



Read more about Nicaragua: 

Mosquito Coast and the british (1700-1900)
US supported dictator Somoza 
Civil Revolution, Sandinistas and Contras

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua
Maailman maat liput ja historia - Kimmo Kiljunen